A maths teacher who posed as teenage boys on Snapchat to groom vulnerable girls has been jailed for 10 years.

Syed Ahmed, 38, was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday for child sex offences including rape and sexual assault, following a trial that ran between June and July.

The court also imposed an additional three-year extended licence period.

Prosecutor Daniel O’Donoghue told the court that Ahmed was in his early 30s at the time of the offending and was a maths teacher working in Essex .

It was heard that Ahmed approached teenage girls on social media platforms such as Wizz or Yubo “using a false name, age and highly-filtered self-image”.

His exchanges with the girls then moved on to Snapchat, where the defendant “engaged in grooming behaviour”.

The prosecutor told the court: “He used a number of techniques to gain their trust including flattery, promise of gifts, flirtation interest in them, declarations of love and future relationships, sending images of other girls sat in his car, and…